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Digital Economy Bill [Lords]

The scale of funding that the Conservative party is talking about is certainly not available until the new licence fee round is agreed. Indeed, I would argue that if the Conservatives think that the BBC can be run for a lower price, they should reduce the licence fee, not use it to fund other things. It would be far better to have a transparent and clearly identified source of reliable funding, as we propose with the phone line levy. The case for a new ability to license orphan works is a very strong one. Many films, for example, some in the BBC archive, cannot be seen at all today because nobody knows who owns the copyright. It would be a criminal offence to show those films and that problem needs to be fixed. In the past few weeks, we have heard a good deal about the worries of photographers that clause 43 would allow people to exploit their work by claiming it to be "orphan". I understand and sympathise with those concerns, and I agree that they need to be addressed, but clause 43 would allow us to do that. In the end, if photographers were not satisfied that we were able to produce orphan rights regulations that met their needs, we would not proceed with the regulations. I welcome the statement about clause 43 made last week by a number of photography organisations, including the Association of Photographers, the National Union of Journalists, the Royal Photographic Society and Getty Images, welcoming changes made to the Bill in the other place and looking forward to working with Government on the regulations to be made under clause 43.